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Introduction

Criminal informants provide important information to the justice system, but they also pose serious risks. We hope this website will help attorneys, journalists, advocates, and families to better understand this vital area of public policy.

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WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS

Criminal informants are famously unreliable. Jailhouse snitch testimony often leads to wrongful conviction. Over 45 percent of all innocent people exonerated from death sentences were wrongfully convicted based on the testimony of a lying criminal informant. This makes snitches the leading cause of wrongful conviction in U.S. capital cases.

YOUNG INFORMANTS

Police sometimes use children as young as 14 as informants. These children may be exposed to drugs, violence, and other criminal activities as they work to get information for their handlers. Some have been killed. California and New Jersey have laws restricting the practice: in other states police have discretion to use juvenile informants.

INFORMANT CRIMES

Some informants are serious criminals who receive leniency for their own crimes. The FBI has been known to use murderers as informants. Many jurisdictions permit drug dealers to continue selling drugs in exchange for cooperation. In 2011, the crimes committed by FBI informants alone totaled over 5,600.

URBAN COMMUNITIES PAY THE PRICE

Informants are a staple of drug enforcement. This means that where drug enforcement is heaviest, informant activity is also heaviest. Because drug arrests occur disproportionately in low-income African American neighborhoods, those residents must live with the crime, violence, and distrust that go with criminal informant use.

REFORM

Many states are rethinking their criminal informant policies. Some have passed laws restricting the use of jailhouse snitch witnesses. Some have created new rules for disclosure and accountability. The U.S. Congress is considering a number of reforms that would improve transparency and safety. In the future, the laws governing criminal informants will likely look very different than they do today.

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Friday, August 20, 2010

The power of labels

There is no shortage of slang terms for informants: "weasels," "rats," "stool pigeons," and, of course, "snitches." And none imply positive things about those who assist the police. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, to "weasel" means "to escape from or extricate oneself out (of a situation, obligation, etc.), esp. dishonourably." A "rat" is "a man who is deceitful or disloyal in a romantic relationship," "a person who deserts his or her party, side, or cause," "a person who gives information, esp. of an incriminating nature, on another person to the police or other authority, an informer." And to "snitch" is "to inform upon or on a person" or "to take surreptitiously, purloin." Yet, despite the negative connotations of these slang terms, they (and particularly "snitch") are used synonymously with "informant" in journalism and academic debate, where at least the appearance of neutrality is valued. For instance, a search of news articles over the past year finds thousands of uses of the word "snitch." Many of course are found in direct quotations or a similar context, but some simply refer to informants as snitches, and thus import the negative connotation into a presumably neutral forum. A fair number of law review articles incorporate the word "snitch" in the title. And this blog is called, "Snitching Blog."

To some extent, of course, the use of slang synonyms is unavoidable as authors and reporters seek to avoid repetition. But I raise the issue because I wonder to what extent the use of a term like "snitch" improperly colors the debate over the proper role and treatment of confidential informants. Some, like Paul Butler, have argued that the term "snitch" refers only to a subset of confidential informants and do not include those civilians who assist the police out of a sense of civic duty. I don't disagree that were this distinction adhered to in practice, it would be valuable, but the use of the word "snitch" is sufficiently indiscriminate to raise concerns that in academic and journalistic discussion those good citizens are being painted with the same brush as criminals who turn in their accomplices.